Best Practices

These best practices and white papers represent the cooperative efforts of M3AAWG members to provide the industry with recommendations and background information to improve messaging security and protect users. M3AAWG best practices are updated as needed and new documents are added as they become available.

Even though opportunistic encryption protects messages during transmission from sender to receiver, it is still possible for a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacker with a self-signed certificate to impersonate the intended destination.
This brief document describes the MITM situation, outlines various methods bad actors can use to conduct MITM attacks, covers components for deterring these attacks and introduces DANE (DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities), a new technology to assist messaging providers in validating they are communicating with an intended destination when using SSL/TLS.

This document was jointly developed by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and M3AAWG with technical and business practices to help ISPs and mailbox providers thwart phishing attacks and other malevolent network abuses. It also includes practices to respond constructively when these attacks occur. Version 2.01 updates the anti-phishing best practices originally published in 2006.

Written in plain language by M3AAWG and the London Action Plan (LAP), Operation Safety-Net outlines the current and emerging threats faced by consumers, businesses and governments with recommended best practices to address these threats. For a brief overview of the document, see the brochure explaining the global depth and breadth of these best practices in the Supporting Documents section from the For the Industry menu tab.

These industry best practices are intended to help mitigate the abuse of mobile messaging (i.e., SMS, MMS and RCS), including text messaging and connected services. The guidelines outlined here will assist service providers and vendors in maintaining practical levels of trust and security across an open, globally-interconnected messaging environment.

System abuse drains time and revenue for hosting and cloud providers, who must maintain constant vigilance to make sure their systems are not compromised and ensure that their customers are vigilant. This document categorizes types of abuse, suggests appropriate responses and reviews practices for dealing with customers and complaints. It provides current best common practices in use with the hosting, DNS and domain registration provider communities.